At the end of February, he paid a brief visit to Norwich, and made arrangements for the rebuilding of the Foundery, which the Norwich Methodists were using as a meeting-house, an unknown friend having given him money enough for that purpose. After returning to London, he and Thomas Walsh visited the Methodist soldiers at Canterbury; and also made a preaching excursion to Beaconsfield and to High Wycombe. On Monday, the 11th of April, he held a covenant service at Spitalfields, at which twelve hundred Methodists met him, and which lasted for above five hours. Next morning, he set out on a four months’ tour to the north of England. His first halting place was Bedford; where the mayor of the town, Mr. Parker, was his host. Mr. Parker, we believe, was the first Methodist that ever filled the chair of a chief magistrate. Wesley writes: “Mr. Parker hath not borne the sword in vain. There is no cursing or swearing heard in the streets of Bedford; no work done on the Lord’s day; indeed, no open wickedness of any kind.” For about forty years this mayor of Bedford was an “artless,” but useful local preacher. He was a nursing father to the Bedford Methodists; a fine example of good works to all who knew him; and triumphantly went to heaven, in 1785, at the age of eighty. From Bedford, Wesley proceeded to Leicester, Birmingham, Dudley, Nantwich, Chester, and Liverpool. At the last mentioned town, James Scholefield, an expelled itinerant, had swept away half the society by telling “lies innumerable.” It was probably this first Liverpool division which induced Wesley to spend nearly a fortnight in the town and neighbourhood. He was introduced to Mr. Peter Whitefield, a man of strong understanding, whose “Dissertation in Defence of the Hebrew Points” Wesley considered the best that he ever read. He also had an interview with a novel kind of husband, “who, by the advice of his pastor, had, very calmly and deliberately, beaten his wife with a large stick, till she was black and blue, almost from head to foot.” The man insisted, that it was his duty to do this, because his wife “was surly and ill natured; and, that he was full of faith all the time he was doing it, and had been so ever since.” From Liverpool, Wesley went to Warrington and to Manchester. He then rode over the mountains to Huddersfield, and says: “A wilder people I never saw in England. The men, women, and children filled the street as we rode along, and appeared just ready to devour us. They were, however, tolerably quiet while I preached; only a few pieces of dirt were thrown, and the bellman came in the middle of the sermon. I had almost done when they began to ring the bells.” The next few days were spent at Bradford, Birstal, Halifax, Heptonstall, Ewood, and Gawksham.